Why Was N64 Cart Based?

[tomaitheous]

Piracy helps increase the install base, as people still had to buy a genuine console to chip. And since developers and publishers favour the console with the most users, it gets more games.
Thing is you have to have a popular product in the first place for piracy to happen, if N64 was the top console I'm sure we would have seen pirate carts for it too.

Piracy in the sense that "shady" companies are illegally selling unofficial/straight out copyright infringement material, is really a much different problem then the customers copying the games themselves.

Playstation provided a very easy approach for the customer/user to copy the game their self, instead of purchasing a "pirated" CD. Flash was still in its infancy back '96-97 and 64megabytes would have cost quite a lot of money.

So I don't see the same thing or at least on the same scale, happening to N64 if it had the installed user base and/or popularity that the PS1 received.

[0x15e]

My biggest question is why SNK was still making Neo Geo carts until 2004??

As in why were Neo Geo games on carts or why were they still being made at all?

1. Because the Neo could access the whole cart at once (or at least half). It's like having the whole game in RAM all the time. That's why it took so long to get acceptable ports on disc-based consoles.
2. Because it was cheaper for SNKP to develop / rehash games for the low-res Neo than try to make real high-res games for modern hardware.

[lilmul123]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintend..._game_consoles

[Black_Tiger]

I believe Nintendo's main reason was to get rich off of selling the carts to publishers.

[MN12BIRD]

Because Nintendo is always 5-10 years or so behind on technology with the one exception being the SNES.

GameCube?? It was more powerful then the PS2 and therefore technically competitive with the generation it was in.... unlike the Wii.

N64 was powerful for it's time. I mean look at Perfect Dark, Indiana Jones and the Infernal machine or Star Wars Rouge Squadron with the RAM pak in high resolution mode. This fixed the "Blurry" problems!

[Joe Redifer]

GameCube?? It was more powerful then the PS2 and therefore technically competitive with the generation it was in.... unlike the Wii.

I should clarify myself. I meant the media on which it offers games. The Gamecube was behind DVDs, and now the Wii is behind Blu-ray and only uses dual layers for ONE game... and that has problems running on some Wiis. The Xbox 360 uses dual layers for nearly every game.

[MN12BIRD]

good point. But I liked the small disc format of the GC. It did have great load times and being simple and single layer I believe helped its reliability. I've never seen a GC have disc reading errors. They just have this rock solid feel to them. Plus most importantly for Nintendo they once again helped stomp out piracy.

[j_factor]

What's the one dual-layer Wii game?

[Rusty Venture]

The new Super Smash Brothers?

[Joe Redifer]

Super Smash Brothers. Weird. I just thought of this, but who exactly are the Smash Brothers?

Anyway, it was easy to pirate Gamecube games. All you needed was a chip mod.

[Rusty Venture]

Smash Brothers = Japanese name of the Hammer Brothers???

I want to know what makes the Smash Brothers so Super.

[MN12BIRD]

Everything in Japan is Super!

No one cracked the GC for several years. I believe it was about 3 years after launch before the first Game Cube mod chip was out. Also the small DVD-R's weren't really available right away either.

But mainly I'm guessing Nintendo was betting that small DVD-Rs would never become a regularly available item??

[VinnyT]

good point. But I liked the small disc format of the GC. It did have great load times and being simple and single layer I believe helped its reliability. I've never seen a GC have disc reading errors. They just have this rock solid feel to them. Plus most importantly for Nintendo they once again helped stomp out piracy.

You lucky, lucky bastard.....

[Joe Redifer]

The Wii is ridiculously easy to pirate for. The PS3, not so much.

[Rusty Venture]

Why make pirate games for the Nintendo console when you can make an official game that is just as crappy (or worse).